Thermal stability of interfaces between metals and InP-based materials

The thermal stability of interfaces between metals (Ni, Pt, Ti, Mo) and III-V compound semiconductors has been investigated by the application of Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. Metal diffusion and interfacial lattice disorder of the semiconductors were analyzed for various metal/semiconductor samples annealed at temperatures up to 500°C. The interfaces of Ni/GaAs and Ti/GaAs were found to be more stable than those of Ni/In-based semiconductors and Ti/ In-based semiconductors, respectively. Faster diffusion of Pt atoms was ob-served in In-and As-containing materials than in P-containing materials. Mo/ semiconductor interfaces were the most stable.     

Analysis and design-optimization of LCC resonant inverter forhigh-frequency AC distributed power system

The analysis and design of an LCC resonant inverter for a 20 kHz AC distributed power system are presented. Several resonant converter topologies are assessed to determine their suitability for high efficiency power conversion, under resistive and reactive loads. Two LCC-resonant inverter designs were implemented. One with all switches operating with zero voltage switching (ZVS), and another with two switches operating with ZVS and two switches with zero current switching (ZCS). The experimental results are presented along with a performance comparison of the two versions     

Pyrolysis of tertiarybutylphosphine at low pressure

The pyrolysis of tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP) has been studied in the low pressure conditions used for chemical beam epitaxy (CBE). The pyrolysis studies were carried out in low pressure reactors of two different configurations, one of which is a cracker cell designed for use in a CBE system. The reaction products were studied using a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The products observed are accounted for by a reaction mechanism involving homolysis of the parent TBP molecule to produce PH₂ and C₄H₉ radicals. These undergo subsequent reactions to form the stable products C₄H₈, PH₃ and H₂, with smaller amounts of P and P₂ being produced. The production of the sub-hydride PH₂ using this cracker cell design indicates that the use of partially cracked TBP may be a promising technique for reducing the amount of carbon incorporated into the growing epitaxial layer.     

Analysis of aperture-coupled microstrip antenna using thesegmentation method

The authors present an original analysis of an aperture-coupled microstrip antenna. The theory is based on the segmentation method, which considers the patch as a multiport network whose impedance matrix is deduced from a hybrid matrix, and the use of analytical expressions of the cavity admittance at the slot centre. The theory is presented for the first time, and the theoretical results are in good agreement with previous published measurements     

Tri-band frequency selective surface with circular ring elements

Theoretical analysis, physical reasonings, and experimental verifications are presented for a frequency selective surface with circular ring elements. Both double-screen and single-screen designs are generated for a tri-band system that reflects the X-band signal while transmitting through the S- and Ku-band signals. In these designs, the dielectric loading effect is used to reduce ring size and element spacing and thus avoid the grating lobe problem. The circular ring element is very insensitive to a large variation of the RF incident angle     

Electrical passivation in hydrogen plasma exposed GaN

Lightly p-doped (3×10¹⁷ cm^-3) GaN grown on GaAs substrates by metal organic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE) shows deactivation of the residual acceptors on exposure to a microwave (2.45 GHz) hydrogen plasma at 250°C. Subsequent annealing to 350°C produces further dopant passivation, while higher temperatures (450°C) restore the initial conductivity. These results suggest that hydrogen carrier gases should be avoided during vapour phase growth of III-V nitrides     

Power IC with EEPROM programmable switch mode regulators

A power IC is described with an EEPROM programmable trim for precision regulation of two switch-mode regulators and a high accuracy oscillator. In-the-package voltage adjustment to 1% and an oscillator trim of 1.5% are achieved with the internal trim capability. The IC also features an “H” bridge for DC motor control and eight low-side drivers for driving unipolar stepper motors. A modified 44 pin plastic leaded chip carrier gives 30°C/W performance     

Reconfigurable FSS response from two layers of slotted dipolearrays

Two layer frequency selective surfaces (FSS) comprised of aperture elements on a single dielectric substrate are used to produce extremely narrow and angularly stable passband transmission responses. Experimental results are compared with predictions to verify a computer model which is based on solving a pair of coupled aperture integral equations. Reductions in bandwidth of up to a factor of seven have been achieved     

A nonlinear operator-based speech feature analysis method withapplication to vocal fold pathology assessment

Traditional speech processing methods for laryngeal pathology assessment assume linear speech production with measures derived from an estimated glottal flow waveform. They normally require the speaker to achieve complete glottal closure, which for many vocal fold pathologies cannot be accomplished. To address this issue, a nonlinear signal processing approach is proposed which does not require direct glottal flow waveform estimation. This technique is motivated by earlier studies of airflow characterization for human speech production. The proposed nonlinear approach employs a differential Teager energy operator and the energy separation algorithm to obtain formant AM and FM modulations from filtered speech recordings. A new speech measure is proposed based on parameterization of the autocorrelation envelope of the AM response. This approach is shown to achieve impressive detection performance for a set of muscular tension dysphonias. Unlike flow characterization using numerical solutions of Navier-Stokes equations, this method is extremely computationally attractive, requiring only a small time window of speech samples. The new noninvasive method shows that a fast, effective digital speech processing technique can be developed for vocal fold pathology assessment without the need for direct glottal flow estimation or complete glottal closure by the speaker. The proposed method also confirms that alternative nonlinear methods can begin to address the limitations of previous linear approaches for speech pathology assessment